om his chair in such a state of excitement that
he set his cup of coffee down upon its side instead of its bottom,
to the detriment of the tablecloth, and of something besides, more
unquestionably the personal property of his wife? Why was it that,
heedless of her questions, backed although they were both by just
anger and lawful curiosity, he ran straight from the room and the
house, nor stayed until, at one and the same moment, his foot was on
the top step of his lawyer's door, and his hand upon its bell? No
doubt it was somebody's business, and perhaps it might be Mr.
Sclater's, to find the heirs of men who died intestate; but what
made it so indubitably, so emphatically, so individually, so
pressingly Mr. Sclater's, that he forgot breakfast, tablecloth,
wife, and sermon, all together, that he might see to this boy's
rights? Surely if they were rights, they could be in no such
imminent danger as this haste seemed to signify. Was it only that
he might be the first in the race to right him?--and if so, then
again, why? Was it a certainty indisputable, that any boy, whether
such an idle tramp as the minister supposed this one to be or not,
would be redeemed by the heirship to the hugest of fortunes? Had
it, some time before this, become at length easier for a rich boy to
enter into the kingdom of heaven? Or was it that, with all his
honesty, all his religion, all his churchism, all his protestantism,
and his habitual appeal to the word of God, the minister was yet a
most reverential worshipper of Mammon,--not the old god mentioned in
the New Testament, of course, but a thoroughly respectable modern
Mammon, decently dressed, perusing a subscription list! No doubt
justice ought to be done, and the young man over at Roughrigs was
sure to be putting in a false claim, but where were the lawyers,
whose business it was? There was no need of a clergyman to remind
them of their duty where the picking of such a carcase was
concerned. Had Mr. Sclater ever conceived the smallest admiration
or love for the boy, I would not have made these reflections; but,
in his ignorance of him and indifference concerning him, he believed
there would at least be trouble in proving him of approximately
sound mind and decent intellect. What, then, I repeat and leave it,
did all this excitement on the part of one of the iron pillars of
the church indicate?

From his lawyer he would have gone at once to Mistress
Croale--indeed I think he